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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3661 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for May 10, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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I don't know anything about this stuff, but I thought I remember hearing people (maybe even Motte people) say that it's much easier to have weight loss cycles separate from bulking cycles.

It's the ladder of building muscle:

  • noobs can gain non-trivial amount of muscle while dieting or later eating at maintenance

  • intermediates can gain non-trivial amount of muscle when bulking

  • advanced bodybuilders can only gain non-trivial amount of muscle when bulking on a very strict diet

In general, skeletal muscles are luxury organs. Your body will get rid of excess muscle as soon as it convinces itself it needs to conserve energy and it doesn't really need them that much. That's why it's necessary to keep all your muscles well-fatigued during cutting, especially when you have bigger muscles that usual: your body goes, "shit, not enough food, what can I convert into energy? These fat stores look useful for a rainy day, how about I start with these biceps?"

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